The Sims franchise has been a touchstone of gaming for decades now, with tens of millions of fans still playing the most recent entry in the series every day. Though The Sims 4 is now free-to-play, purchasing every one of the many DLC packs can cost up to $1,500 altogether! If you’re looking for a more buy-once experience for a life sim, there are a few games you can try below from indie developers that offer similar experiences.
Other than the Early Access game Inzoi from Krafton (decidedly not an indie title), there aren’t really any games out there that capture the entire experience of The Sims, but depending on what you’re looking for one of these should hopefully scratch the itch!
If you want a casual and low-friction life simulation
Snacko
You’ve likely noticed a trend in many life sim and farm sim games in that they begin with the protagonist being unsatisfied with their life in the city and decide happiness can only be found out in nature. In Snacko, your animal character will head back to the titular island to try and help rebuild it physically, restart the economy, and start a new life. Pick out shopkeepers, choose building sites, customize your tools, and craft to your heart’s content. You can craft with items from your storage anywhere, which is a huge bonus in games like this.
Snacko tries to provide the path of least resistance to players, promising a no-friction gameplay style similar to Animal Crossing: New Horizons. With every aspect of the climate and world customizable, four biomes to explore, perks like infinite storage and materials, and lots of Guild Quests that will physically build out the town, Snacko should appeal to Sims fans who like casual play and watching the fruits of their exploits. At the time of writing, Snacko has been announced for Nintendo Switch and PlayStation 5 ports but has no firm release date for consoles.
My Little Life
My Little Life is extremely unusual, as it actually plays only on the bottom half of your computer screen while you continue to work on the top half of your screen. While obviously an idle game, My Little Life allows you to periodically check out the life of your little guy in a no-stress environment. Nothing ever needs your urgent attention, and even if you leave it running for hours you won’t miss anything or lose an opportunity.
You’ll still get a chance to interact by ordering items for your avatar, choosing their career path, and building their home out, so it’s not like you’re watching a movie. With My Little Life, you can sit and work on your 20 page term paper about the evolutionary history of the oregano plant (a real one I wrote) and simultaneously manage your little character’s Twitch streaming career with minimal interruption.
Moonlight in Garland
Moonlight in Garland is immediately a stand out on this list; it begins with your simulated character leaving the boring rural towns where every store closes at 6 and heading to the big city to finally live their life. Choose one of four apartment buildings each with a unique open-ended storyline, get a part time job to fund your new life, and build connections with over 20 residents with both romance and friendship paths.
Things can get pretty wacky as well, with quests like stealing a helicopter with friends or breaking up with your lover via skywriting. Mostly, Moonlight In Garland offers players a way to feel as though they’re fairly compensated for the work they do, and then the ability to use that compensation any way they want – money is the only resource to manage in this life sim. Decorate your space, break a few hearts, and enjoy this solo-developed game that was made from the ground up “with love and tea.”
If you want to simulate your own character’s life and career
Little Sim World (Early Access)
Up for a spot of tea? In Little Sim World, you’ll head to Little London to design your perfect home, meet and befriend the locals, and live your life by building out routines. In this 2D top-down life sim, you can of course customize your character’s design and home with great malleability. There are tons of shops to explore and people to meet, and generally just life activities like checking a book out of the library or grocery shopping.
Little Sim World requires more attention to your sim than other games on this list, with 8 meters to manage from comfort, to health, to bladder. This ensures that you’ll be able to build out routines for your character, developing abilities like fishing and cooking to continually get better at them. And yes, you can of course find love here, with a few characters having comprehensive romance storylines to pursue. And, if you’re interested in building a community with your friends, up to five players can join in to make a town they can all call their own. Little Sim World is currently in Early Access but has just received a major update, so it’s a great time to jump in.
To Pixelia
To Pixelia offers another 2D top-down experience, this time with a greater focus on your character’s career path. You could be a butcher, a baker, a candlestick maker – the world is your oyster! After making a character, you pick out a career field in anything from sciences to sports to arts to construction and work to make your way to the top.
You’ll need to start with lower tier, lower paying jobs and work your way up from there, but there’s no need to pursue an office job in the process! Maybe you begin as a SoundCloud musician, work your way up to shows in dive bars, and one day to your own Eras Tour! To Pixelia is less of a life sim and more of a career sim, but with a suite of paths to choose from. To Pixelia is only out on Steam at the moment, but is announced for Nintendo Switch with an unspecified date.
Tiny Life (Early Access)
Tiny Life aims to replicate the experience of playing 2000’s The Sims, and does a pretty bang-up job of it, warts and all. Although it’s been in Early Access since 2021, it’s still receiving major updates regularly and making slow but steady progress. While it doesn’t have as robust features as the other games on this list, Tiny Life will certainly provide nostalgic fans of the early games with a pleasant experience.
You’ll control a set of people living in a house together, take care of their needs, build routines, and help build relationships. There’s also house customization, chore charts, extra households, and essentially anything else you could find in The Sims, albeit with limited options as it’s a small development team. Fans of the classic games will absolutely want to keep an eye on Tiny Life.
If you love the interior design aspect of The Sims
The Tenants
In a decidedly not punk approach to life sims, in The Tenants you’ll play as a landlord and build out a rental property empire. Design your apartments, build to appeal to certain demographics to entice them to spend more on rent, and spin the wheel of capitalism! While there’s not much of a system of building out your own routines, here you can observe the routines of tenants in your various buildings to maximize efficiency and profits. Have a dancer interested in moving in? Clear out room for a studio and replace the floors with hardwood to get her to agree to a higher rent price.
The Tenants is a romanticized simulation of the real life version of being a landlord in which everyone pays what they want for what they want, and it’s up to you to provide it to them. You’ll get to feel both the artistic satisfaction of seeing your design come together and the good brain chemicals that come in when the number goes up! The Tenants is out on PC right now but has been announced for PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, and Nintendo Switch with no firm release date.
MakeRoom
MakeRoom is the epitome of ultra-cozy, with pleasant music and beautiful art accompanying a sandbox interior design simulator with light progression. Start off by designing rooms to order by cleaning up and clearing out spaces and them filling them out however you’d please. After meeting a few requirements in each stage you can freeform build, changing the placement, size, color, and even 3D vertices of hundreds of individual items to make it look just how you want.
MakeRoom has a good balance of objective and sandbox, providing a firm starting point for your build (such as “Vampire House” or “Gamer Room”) but letting you design to your heart’s content afterwards and providing daily challenges. While a little less structured than Animal Crossing: New Horizons DLC Happy Home Paradise, MakeRoom scratches the same itch and can hopefully allow you to build out your dream home with its wealth of options. MakeRoom is currently only available on PC but has announced a Nintendo Switch version coming soon.
House Flipper 2
House Flipper 2 is easily the most robust interior design game available today outside The Sims 4 itself, with the caveat that it has a few DLC packs. No need to worry, however; the base game comes with thousands of build options and a full story mode and sandbox mode, to give you the best of both worlds. Freeform building is available from the start for those who wish to play around creatively, while Story Mode’s long-term renovation projects can guide your creative hand with objectives.
You can do everything from tear down and build structures to customize every piece of shrubbery and every wall panel inside. There’s also a co-op mode to build with up to 3 friends, and a built-in mod manager to peruse for new community creations and builds. Plus, there’s a massive Scooby-Doo crossover DLC pack where you can investigate ghost sightings while renovating old haunted houses from the classic TV series, featuring the entire Scooby Gang and even guest appearances from the fan favorite Hex Girls.
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More games in the same vein as The Sims are still on the horizon, with other indie games like Paralives promising a similar experience when it comes to Early Access in 2026. In the meantime, there’s a great selection of life sims available to peruse here – or, of course, you could return to Stardew Valley for just one more farm. Did we miss any of your favorites? Let us know in the comments below!
